Page 47 of Objection to Love

Her mouth twisted to the side, and Garrett couldn’t stop his thoughts from wandering back to that spot on the trail. Would she have welcomed his kiss? She certainly seemed about to.

“I’m not sure about that. Maybe. Okay, yes.”

Garrett’s thoughts spiraled a bit before realizing she wasn’t talking about their almost-kiss. Too bad. He turned to stand next to her, looking out at the lake.

“Go ahead, you can say I told you so.” She nudged him with her shoulder, and he welcomed the sense of camaraderie that seemed to be growing between them. He needed to focus on that. Not any othersomethingbetween them.

“Okay. I told you so. I knew you’d find this placeappealing.” Boom. Got the pun in.

She cocked her head. “Is that supposed to be a lawyer pun?”

Hey, she’d finally noticed! “I plead the fifth.”

She laughed. “You’re ridiculous. So now what? Do we just head back down?”

“Nope. Now, we swim!” He swung his backpack down and zipped it open. But she didn’t move. He looked up at her as he pulled out his suit. “You’ll probably want to change first, unless you’d rather I throw you in like that?”

Em gave him a dry look. “No, thank you. I’m just trying to figure out how you expect me to change.”

Oh. Right.

He straightened up, looking around. “Noah and I usually just hold a towel up for each other. Maybe you and…” He grimaced, glancing over at Jenica. There was no part of him that wanted to force Em into her company.

Luckily, she seemed to understand his dilemma. “It’s fine. I’ll just go find a tree or something. Do you have an extra towel? I didn’t realize I would need one. Part of me was hanging on to the hope that you were taking me to some fancy swimming pool, and they’d have heated towels all rolled and stacked for us. I guess this isn’t a horrible trade though.”

Garrett blinked at her, surprised she wasn’t against swimming. “Yeah, here.” He handed her a towel, and she thanked him then disappeared into the tree line.

Reluctantly, he walked over to Noah and Jenica. They were in the middle of a conversation.

“Yeah, I won’t be swimming. I’ll just lay out here,” Jenica was saying. “I don’t even want to think about what might be in that water.”

“Suit yourself. Garrett, wanna go change?”

“Yup.” And, like a pair of boys fleeing a newly broken window, they ran from Jenica and into the trees.

Chapter 17

Em

Withoutmuchtrouble,Emslipped into her swimsuit behind a large pine tree. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone swimming—maybe on that overnight trip with her debate team senior year. She seemed to recall the hotel had a pool.

But she used to love it. She’d spent whole summers swimming at her grandparents’ until they’d passed when she was in middle school.

With the towel tucked under her arm, she started back toward the lake.

“—I thought you swore off dating?”

Em paused her walking at the sound of Noah’s voice. A twig snapped beneath her sneaker.

“I did. Em and I aren’t dating.”

“That’s not what it looked like when we caught up to you on the trail.”

“Horrible timing, by the way.”

Em could hear Garrett’s frustration, and warmth spread down her spine at the thought of their near-kiss. She was supposed to be keeping a healthy distance, but instead she found herself regretting the interruption. A lot.

“Sorry about that.”

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